A Primer on Finding Unclaimed Property

Finding free money lying around with your name on it seems a little too good to be true, doesn't it?

That's what I thought when I learned about Missing Money, a website that offers to help you track down unclaimed property that may belong to you. Sometimes free money is for real, though. The site is legit and exactly what it claims: a tool for finding free money. Specifically, money that's already yours that you may have forgotten about or lost track of.

What is Unclaimed Property?
Unclaimed property is any financial asset that has been abandoned for a period of time. That time might be as little as one year or as much as three, depending on the state you live in. If the financial institution or company holding your money loses contact with you and can't locate you within a certain period of time, they have to turn your assets over to the state. According to Missing Money, some common types of unclaimed property include:

Bank accounts and safe deposit box contents

Stocks, mutual funds, bonds, and dividends

Uncashed checks and wages

Insurance policies, CD's, trust funds

Utility deposits, escrow accounts

You can also discover more exotic things. One of my colleagues reported that he and his sister used an unclaimed property claim to recover royalties for natural gas rights on land they own together.

The notion of unclaimed property is seductive: The idea that somewhere out there, money or property that rightfully belongs to you is languishing, just waiting for you to lay claim to it. It's the stuff of Dickens novels! In real life, it's a little more prosaic. Your unclaimed property search isn't likely to be a rags-to-riches story

You may well find some money you'd lost track of, though. State treasuries are holding at least 32 billion dollars in abandoned assets. Some of that might belong to you. According to my home state, Massachusetts, as many as one in ten people have unclaimed property that can be retrieved by claiming it from the state that is holding it.

Missing Money exists to help you find out if you're one of those people. It's a free search service that takes some basic information, like your name and what state you live in, and searches a database for records of unclaimed property that match your data. You can search for anyone's name, not just your own. It's fast, simple and appears to work. A quick search on my name and location turned up two instances of unclaimed property in my name.

The search doesn't give you a lot of detail about the unclaimed property. In my case, it told me who it belonged to (Sierra Black), what town the owner lived in and whether the asset was worth more or less than $100. One of the items had a company name attached to it, the other did not.

To lay claim to the property, you need to file a claim with your state. If your state is one of the ones participating in the Missing Money database, you can fill out the forms directly through their site. If your state isn't participating with Missing Money, or if you prefer to deal directly with your state government, Consumerist suggests a clever hack for finding the appropriate state agency: simply google the phrase “unclaimed property” along with the name of your state, and it should turn up your state's web site for dealing with these claims.

I did this for Massachusetts and it led me to the Abandoned Property Division, where I ran a search under my name and filled out a form very similar to the one on Missing Money. The two processes seem to be interchangeable. Either should work equally well for reuniting you with your long-lost assets, if you have any.

In addition to the basic forms, you may have to prove your right to the assets the state is holding. In the case of the natural gas royalties, my colleague needed a notarized letter verifying that he in fact owned the land in question.

Beware of Scams
Missing Money is a legit site, approved by the National Association of Unclaimed Property Administrators. Its services are free to use. Making a claim directly through your state government is also free. It should not cost you anything to recovered your abandoned property.

That doesn't mean people won't try to sell it to you, though. There are a number of businesses that charge “finder's fees” for finding unclaimed property. They're just doing the same thing you can do for yourself. You might be contacted by a service alerting you to unclaimed property and offering to help you get it back, for a fee. Don't bite. The fees are typically around 10 percent of the total funds recovered, but can range much higher.

There's no need to pay a finder's fee to get your money. You can just fill out the forms through Missing Money or your state's website and retrieve it yourself.

In addition to shady businesses trying to make a buck off real unclaimed property, there are also outright scammers who will try to convince you there's money waiting for you in order to get access to your personal information. Again, you shouldn't need to deal with any third party to get your unclaimed property back. You absolutely should not have to pay a fee for it.

Put This on Your To-Do List
You don't have to pay to get your free money, but you do still have to put some time and effort in. Is it worth it? You decide. The forms are relatively quick and simple to fill out, so for me it seems totally worth it. I expect to get between $100 and $200 back, and the whole search process took less than an hour. That's a pretty good rate of return on my time. I'm adding a search for unclaimed property to my list of annual financial chores, along with pulling my credit reports and checking to see if the interest rate on my savings account is still competitive.

Sierra Black has spent most of her life broke, no matter how much or how little she earned. She started turning that around two years ago with some radical life changes like moving, shifting careers and committing to buying nothing new.

Sierra and her family live in the Boston area. Sustaining a family of five on one salary has led to some creative frugal maneuvers over the years, especially living in an expensive urban area. Sheâ€™s learned how to make a $1 family meal, cut her heating bills in half and save thousands of dollars on travel, clothing and fun.

When Sierra isnâ€™t working magic on her familyâ€™s finances, she writes about personal finance, sustainable living and parenting.

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There are 75 reader responses to "A Primer on Finding Unclaimed Property".

Nicksays

I’m not so sure that many of the GRS readers are going to suddenly find “missing money” that they never knew they had. I would have liked to see the author’s recommendation for a system (electronic, filing cabinet, etc) to prevent money from going missing in the first place. I’m curious how other GRS readers track their investments…

You’d be surprised. We didn’t think we were missing any money, but unbeknownst to us, my husband’s previous employer had one final check that they somehow couldn’t deliver to us. The ridiculous thing was that they had our correct address listed on the unclaimed money site, but for whatever reason, they turned it over to the state rather than deliver it to us. We didn’t know he was supposed to receive it, so we never thought to keep an eye out for it or call when it didn’t arrive.

It was a very nice surprise when we found out how much the claim was for! :)

I had a similar experience with a previous employer. My last check (that I didn’t know was due to me) was eventually sent to my state’s unclaimed fund. I was in and out of that store several times right after I quit so I have no idea why they didn’t just give it to me then. Plus like you it had my correct address printed on it. Oh well, I found it and used the “extra” money to help my little sister go on a high school band trip.

Yep, I just checked and there’s nothing for me, but I found an old paycheck from a summer job my ex-husband had over 20 years ago in his home state. I forwarded him the info (we’re on good terms) — no idea why he never received it, the address listed is still his parents’ address! I’m sure he returned to college and spaced out that he had one more paycheck to collect. It’s under $100 so it might be teeny tiny, but still! Money!

There are several comments about the correct address being on the unclaimed property site. Here’s how that can happen:
Not all states require that the holder of the money perform due diligence to find the owner of the money. (Due diligence is making a reasonable attempt to locate the owner of the money.) In your case, a simple post card to the address of record would have done the trick. That’s why even though the address is correct your money may end up in the state unclaimed property site.

Well, I just ran it and my husband and I are on there. It says we have $100+ due us from Allstate Indemnity (our car and homeowners insurer). It’s probably $101, but we’re certainly going to try to collect it.

It says it’s a premium refund. I don’t know what that would be for. I guess since we weren’t expecting a check, we must’ve thrown the envelope right into the recycling bin when it came in the mail. Why they wouldn’t contact us some other way or credit it toward our premium I have no idea.

It might be bits of money that deceased parents or grandparents left behind. We found $1800 from my deceased father’s checking account. As one of three children I was only entitled to $600, and it took me a full year to get it.

We also found several small amounts from another deceased relative. $25-$50. It had to be split in three, plus a notary had to be paid. We let the state keep it.

You can get forms notarized for free at your bank or your insurance agent’s office.
When looking up deceased relatives, under the last name enter Estate Of or The Estate Of. Those two entries alone will bring up more than 12,500 listings in Calif. In NY, it brings up more than 2,400 listings. It works in every state to varying degrees. If you don’t look it up the way it’s listed, you’ll never find the listing.

Here are tips to prevent your money from going to the state:
1. Cash every check as soon as you get it.
2. When you leave an employer, make sure of how many checks you have coming. For example, if the last day of the pay period is a Friday but your last day that you work is Saturday, they you have TWO checks coming, not one.
3. When you move and change your address with an employer, don’t forget to change it with the insurance companies (health, dental, vision, life) plus the 401K administrator. It’s not up to your employer to notify these other companies.
4. Keep in contact with your accounts at least once a year. Bank accounts and stocks are deemed inactive if there is no customer initiated activity for 3-5 years depending on the state. If a savings account is earning interest, that is NOT “customer initiated activity.” Deposit $5. Take $5 out. Even call and check on your balance.
5. Don’t forget to change your name on all accounts if you have a marriage or divorce.
6. If you’ve been current on paying your utility bills, call and ask them to refund your deposit now, instead of it getting lost in the shuffle when you move.

Nick, you’d be surprised. I used to work for the federal agency that regulates credit unions. Occasionally we’d have to shut one down and it was very hard to track down all the people. Lots of accounts with under $100 that were opened through a job, or in conjunction with an auto loan (many require a $25 minimum in a savings account for a loan), etc and people had forgotten about them. It’s pretty rare for it to be a lot of money, though.

A couple of times I’ve found myself or a family member on the unclaimed property site because of a very small amount of stock we were given as gifts that apparently closed out or something (I know nothing about how stocks work). I was able to get the money for mine, about $40.

To search for money from credit unions go to http://www.ncua.gov/resources/assetmgmtcenter/unclaimed.aspx
Transfer agents handle the administrative work of stocks. To find out who the transfer agent is, go to the company web site and then go to the investor relations page. The transfer agent should be able to answer any questions you have about the stock.

I had this happen to me a few years ago. It was actually a refund check from my mortgage lender when I applied to have my house tax rate reduced (the prior owners were renting the home out and was being taxed at a higher rate). I forgot to update the address, we refinanced and the check never got to me. So that was a nice $600 present.

After reading this article, I tried out Missing Money for ha-ha’s, looking for family members and I also ran my name. I was quite surprised to find an account in my name! It is from a UPromise account I opened up many years ago. The site says it is less than $100.00, but with my first daughter going to college next year, it might be enough to pay the fee for application to one of the schools she picks.

I also ran it for kicks and was startled to find $35 from a gas company I did business with almost 8 years ago, while I was renting a house my senior year of college. That’s not a ton of money, but it’s worth the 20 minutes it took me to find it!

I think a reminder article almost a year later is in readers’ best interests. There are probably new readers since then that haven’t made it quite that far in the archives yet. Plus, it’s difficult to have NEW, EXCITING information all the time.

Also check in any other states you’ve previously lived- not just your current address. I used to remit unclaimed property to states for a rental car company, and most often the problem was renters who had a cash deposit but an old address on file. We remitted to whichever state was in the given address. Happy Finding!

I once claimed “unclaimed property”. My last paycheck from my employer in Massachusetts was waiting for me, months after I’d moved to the Midwest. They sometimes will publish a list of all the names of people with money out there in the paper. And I thought I’d collected the last paycheck, but I guess there was one more. I think most of the time the amounts of money concerned are going to be small, but why leave it out there?

Just found over $100 dollars for my grandmother. She needs a new roof and every little bit makes a big difference in helping her afford that. I will take your advice and check this annually. Thank you for a helpful, relevant article!

This article would have been a lot better if you’d waited until you actually received your two checks to publish it. Then you could answer a bunch of questions that we’re all still asking, like: Did you *actually* get any money back? Was it as much as you expected? Was it as easy as you expected? Did it take weeks or months to get it?

As it stands, it feels a bit like reading a review of a movie written by someone who’s only watched the trailer.

Tyler – My experience was pretty easy, and it wasn’t even my money, it had belonged to a deceased distant relative. It took a little while because I had to get copies of her death certificate and the death certificates of everyone else that would have been in line to inherit. Several people had died without wills, so I thought I’d have a hard time proving that I was in line to inherit it, but I wrote it all out, sent it in with whatever documents I did have and they accepted that. My boyfriend also found some money from his deceased parent and he got his pretty darn fast. If you deal directly with the state, there should be no fee and you get the full amount stated. I think some states pay interest for the time the money was in state custody, but most don’t.

Missing Money has no part past helping you find the money. Time it takes to process your claim and receive the money has everything to do with the individual state’s where the money is held. My experience, within a month of mailing my forms I had my check in the mail. Mine was a last paycheck from a summer job in college of approx 240 dollars.

The main factor in how long it takes to get the money is the amount of national or statewide publicity the missing money program has recently received. The more publicity, the longer the wait.
The complexity depends on the type of claim. Those listings claimed as an heir are the most complex requiring a certified copy of the death certificate, a copy of the will (if one exists) a copy of your birth certificate (if the money is from a parent), the form may need to be notarized.
For a simple claim for yourself, it usually involves a copy of your driver’s license and your social security number. Some states will even let you file online.
The only state that charges a fee is Texas, that charges 1.5% for any listing over $100.

If you are not good in keeping records of your investments and did not register for online access, there might be a chance that your money somewhere is lying unclaimed.

Condition deteriorates when you changed your address in past. In that case USPS has an arrangement to send you all your mails to new address (for $1) for one year after your move. Do register for that.

If you haven’t changed your address in the investment accounts after your move, you won’t get any communication once that 1 year USPS service is turned off.

Missing money helps you in this scenario, I will make it a point to search today..

Be sure to check names of deceased relatives in the states they lived. I ended up getting over $14,000 that belonged to a distant relative (a grandparent’s sibling) who had no direct heirs. You need to be able to show you would be in line to inherit it, but that was not as difficult as I thought it would be.
Often these are small amounts though, like a refund due to you from the gas company from your first college apartment.

I’ve found probably $6,000 this way over the years. One pot of cash was from a job from when I was in high school, the others were old accounts in my deceased parents’ names. I check it every time I read a blog or newspaper article about it. It’s totally worth two seconds of your time!

Both sites are affiliated with the National Association of Unclaimed Property Administrators (NAUPA). I prefer unclaimed.org because I go directly to the state site. This has a couple advantages.
Each listing needs to be claimed in the state in which it is held so you might as well save time and go there to begin with.
I always get more listings by going to the individual states because the very new and very old listings are not on missingmoney.com.

Our local paper puts the names of folks with unclaimed property in the paper. Every year I look to see if I or a deceased relative is in it. Imagine my surprise last fall when my name appeared! Everybody was calling me with the news! I called up the State of NH and low and behold, I had almost $1,500 sitting in some escrow account from a townhouse I sold about 8 years ago!! It was a happy day!

My husband got a letter from our bank saying that he has $500 in unclaimed money. No details on where it came from though and we have no idea. How can we verify that this is our money and not someone else’s with the same name? We can’t prove it’s his because we have no idea where the money came from. It saddens me to leave it unclaimed, but I don’t see how we can ethically claim it.

If it’s an old abandoned bank account, it would have a social security number attached. Is this the bank you are with currently? If I got a call like that, I’d want to make sure it was a legitimate bank, and not a phishing scam.

Made the first attempt with our state’s tax department for some unclaimed property. I have an unusual name, so I know it’s mine. The tax department felt my claim was legitimate, and therefore revealed that it was a check. But, they are requiring another step from me, which was to provide proof of a particular bank account in 1994, 17 years ago! I’m fairly certain I know what the source of the check is, and was drawn on the check-writer’s account, not mine. So, I’ll never be able to claim the money. Oh well.

If you know the name of the bank, you can trace bank “genealogy” and find out who currently owns the bank. Go tohttp://www.ffiec.gov/nicpubweb/nicweb/nichome.aspx
Other than that, try to go up the chain of command at the unclaimed property office.
I think a fair question to them is, “Do you have records from 17 years ago?”
When your name and social security number match, I feel that anything else is simply a way for the state to deny giving you your money so they can keep it.

After the other unclaimed property article, I ran my deceased father’s name and received over $1,000. I’d moved and couldn’t put my hands on my father’s trust documents, but managed to cobble together enough to show that I was an heir along with two sisters. The state sent each of us a check separately. It was a nice windfall and interesting because I’d checked previously after he died with nothing showing.

Years ago, I worked in a Savings & Loan (remember those?) in the dept that submitted unclaimed monies to the State. We sent letters at the 3, 4 and 5 year anniversary of last activity before submittal. The highest account I ever resolved was for $14,000 (estate) and the weirdest one was for a famous deathrow inmate (watching too much violent TV was his defense and ticket to fame).

For quite quite a few years, maybe 11, CT has published names of people with ‘Missing Money’. Two of my sons had some, $600 & $35, from a last paycheck and an abandoned savings account.

Last year I was checking some genealogy facts and found leads to missing money for my DIL, her mother, both under $100 and a whopping $1250+ for my BIL’s aunt – hers seems to have been from an escrow account involved with her husband’s death and a property sale. Amazing where the internet can lead you. All monies were claimed thru state sites and checks were in hand in about 8 weeks.

It boggles my mind that anyone lets any of their money ‘go missing’. I keep track of every single refund, check, dividend, etc. that I am owed. I can’t afford not to! I guess some people are so flush with money that they can allow $30, $50, or $100 or more be unaccounted for.

Just to be sure, I tracked my name on the site, and sure enough…nada. I don’t earn enough to allow any penny owed to me to go ‘missing’.

Its not difficult to understand. We were paying estimated taxes on an account that was seized and liquidated for years because due to a clerical error, only the parents statements arrived. Not the children’s. Only during a website inquiry on the mutual fund website we found out it was “missing”.

The lesson is to be more active with passive investments or buy and hold will turn turn into buy and go missing.

Anyone have ideas of proof of an address from 6 and nearly 10 years ago, respectively (my husband and I both have some money to claim, apparently)?
I may have an old cancelled drivers license with my old address on, but I can’t figure what my husband would use as proof for his address 10 years ago.

Try a utility company, the school board if you had a child in school, the property appraiser’s office or county tax assessor, a utility company, a former employer, or possibly even your credit report. Get a truly free copy of your credit report by going to http://www.annualcreditreport.com.

For Australians there are two services from the government you can use. One is for general stuff, the other is specification for superannuation (our version of retirement savings). Both are linked here:

I have seen ads for commercial services touting on trashy current affair programs like Today Tonight. Such a shame that people would waste their money by providing a commission to these crooks when they could easily do the search themselves.

It’s pretty convenient to have an unusual last name when using this site. I searched my last name and all jurisdictions and got only 45 hits. The only one I recognized was my cousin (for >$100). I haven’t spoken to her in over a year, but it’ll give me a good reason to drop her a line!

This is what my dad does for a living. Finding money and their heirs. I’m being objective in saying that he’s probably the best in the Southeast, if not east of the Mississippi, in what he does. Drop me a line if you’re interested in doing a post about this. I’ll put you in contact with him.

nuts, I’ve never found anything for me or my immediate family, guess we are too penny-pinching to let anything slide. But I think this would be a good idea for people who move alot or looking for deceased family members.

Not all states participate on missingmoney.com. Click on the map of the US on the home page. It will take you to a color-coded map. Green states participate. Blue do not. Yellow are in the process of uploading their info. I always get better results by searching the individual states.

I did find some unclaimed property for my wife, and she ended up getting $260 back from the state of Michigan. While we need to pay taxes on it, it is worth it in my book. I used Missing Money, and it worked really well.

I wrote about this site on my own site a while back and had two readers find unclaimed money. One found a check from an old closed account he had forgotten about, while another found $50 from an old cell phone contract or something. The money is out there in places you never realized sometimes.

As a registered LLC locator service in Wisconsin, I disagree with the claim that anyone can find unclaimed property simply by using Google to access a state’s database. As of Q3 2014 I have located 1.4 million dollars of unclaimed property – all of which would have never been found because of typographical errors. State government lists are rife with errors because there is no standardization to enter data.

Using Google and a state’s database to find unclaimed property is like fixing a flat tire without a jack. You need more tools. Also, a good locator works off all the lists. Looked at hud? Pbgc? City unclaimed database? I currently have a 30 list spreadsheet from city, state, and federal levels. So before a claim like, “… In addition to shady businesses trying to make a buck off real unclaimed property…” legit organizations (like mine) do not employ shady practices. Ever. To make a blanket statement like that is sensational and irresponsible.

My clients are very appreciative of my efforts. And with the money I help recover for them, much happier as well.

I found $10,000 for my sister several years ago. I discovered the account years ago during my tenure in the tax department. I located $350,000 for the company. I visit the site every year and locate money for at least 5 or 6 family members. I stopped telling everyone because people do not believe that it is true. I do not waste my time now. It only takes seconds to type in a name.

I had a deposited several thousand dollars at Frost National Bank, in Texas, when I was in my early twenties. A couple of years ago I found those uncashed deposits in a box at my parent’s place. Frost refuses to acknoledge the deposit and sd that they have records going back only 7 years and that it is up to me to prove that I have not withdrawn the money! I tried to contact the Texas Department of Banking, but to no avail.

Anyone have any ideas on how I can recover my money? (it is NOT listed on an unclaimed property site)
Thanks!

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My name is J.D. Roth. I started Get Rich Slowly in 2006 to document my personal journey as I dug out of debt. Then I shared while I learned to save and invest. Twelve years later, I've managed to reach early retirement! I'm here to help you master your money — and your life. No scams. No gimmicks. Just smart money advice to help you get rich slowly. Read more.

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